January Customs

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5th January - Twelfth Night,
This night and the following night are when wassailing used to take place. The word wassail comes from the Anglo Saxon words Waes Heil - meaning be whole or healthy. People drank each other's health from a large wassail bowl, filled with a drink such as "lamb's wool" made of hot ale or cider, nutmeg, and sugar with roasted crab apples. In some parts of Britain trees and bees are still wassailed - to ensure a healthy crop. Having drunk the tree's health, people fire shotguns into the branches. Different areas had different wassail songs people would sing to the tree. Here's one from Worcestershire, England:
Here's to thee, old apple tree Whence thou mayest bud Whence thou mayest blow Whence thou mayest bear apples enow.
This was the end of the traditional Christmas season and was a time for one last fling with games, dressing up and plays, all managed by the Lord of Misrule. Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night was probably written for a twelfth night celebration at Elizabeth I's court in 1601.


6th January - Twelfth Day
Talking of the theatre, the famous 18th-century actor Robert Baddeley left instructions in his will that a special cake be given to the cast playing at London's Theatre Royal on this day.

13th January - Whittlesey Straw Bear
In Cambridgeshire a man covered with straw and, looking more like a dancing haystack than a bear, cavorts around the streets of Whittlesey collecting money for charity. The reason why has been long lost and probably goes back to pre-Christian times.

12th January - Plough Monday
The first Monday after Twelfth Night was the day when farm work began again, often with spring ploughing. The plough was blessed (sometimes in church on the day before) and then dragged through the streets of the village. In some cases gifts were demanded at houses, and if they weren't given, revenge was taken by ploughing up the garden! The tradition of Plough Monday still survives in some parts of Britain and has been revived in others.

12th January - Lady Jane Grey's Ghost
For the ghost hunters among you, this is a day to meet a royal ghost. Pop along to the Tower of London and look out for the spooky figure of Britain's shortest reigning monarch (only nine days) - Lady Jane Grey, who was executed on this day in 1554.

20th January - St Agnes Eve
This night is meant to be when women can find out the identity of their future husbands - either you eat a salted herring before you go to bed or stick a load of pins in the sleeve of your nightdress, and you will dream of your future love. Either that or you won't be able to sleep at all!

25th January - Burns Night
Tonight Scotland celebrates the birthday of its favourite poet Robert Burns. Pride of place at the feast goes to the haggis - minced mutton, offal, oatmeal and spices boiled in a sheep's stomach. Robert Burns's own words are used to address the haggis -
"Fair fa' your honest sonsie face Great chieftain o' the pudden race."
Sometimes the haggis is serenaded in by bagpipes.


27th January Up Helly Aa
Still in Scotland, on the last Tuesday in January probably the most spectacular of all the winter fire festivals is held. Called Up Helly Aa, it takes place at Lerwick, Shetland. A huge Viking longship is dragged through the town by men called "guizers" led by the "Jarl" . The guizers carry lit torches which are thrown into the ship. The ship is destroyed by the fire, but the celebrations continue around the town.


30th January - Charles I's Execution
On the anniversary of King Charles I's execution in 1649 wreathes are laid at the King's statue in Whitehall, London and the musketeers of the "Kings Army" dressed in 17th-century uniforms march from the statue to the site of Charles' execution outside the Banqueting House.